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Friday, February 10, 2012

Japanese Artbooks, a Look into Mangaka Methods.

While in Japan, I bought a lot of artbooks that I hadn't been able to locate in the US. Japanese artbooks tend to be cheaper than their American counterparts, and there's a huge variety of titles and genres available. I tend to fall on the shoujo side of the manga spectrum, so I was really delighted to find artbooks by Ai Yazawa, Chica Umino, an art of Ponyo book, and several Manga Bibles. While I have no intention of scanning every page and offering it up for scanlation, I feel little guilt offering a few pertinent pages, especially since so many of you guys asked me what mangaka use when making their comics. I have a video saved for a later date to share with you, but for now, please enjoy these scans. I'm breaking tables all over the place so you guys can actually SEE what's going on in these pages.

This is from Manga Bible, Volume 1.

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From Fusoko Kuromochi's artbook. LOOK AT HER COPIC STASH!

From Chica Umino's "Honey and Clover" artbook. I love how soft and dreamy her style is, she's been a major influence on my work (believe it or not).

And Ai Yazawa's artbook. I THINK it's a Neighborhood Story artbook, but it's hard to tell. There's no English to go by.

Vigilante comic artist, illustrator, and comic craft blogger at www.nattosoup.blogspot.com. I have an MFA from SCAD in Sequential Art, which means I'm highly educated in the art of drawing funny picture books. I specialize in comics aimed at young girls, and enjoy the finer things in life- seinen manga, whiney autobio graphic novels, and science fiction.

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